Editorial : US surveillance threatens all our basic freedoms

As the increasingly broad extent of the American government's surveillance is revealed, civil rights watchdogs are justifiably concerned at the impact that this could have on the personal rights and freedoms of private citizens.

Of course, many of us were already aware of the mass espionage programme being undertaken by the USA, and their extensive recruitment of trees, most notably ash trees, to spy on unsuspecting members of the public.

Many people say that trees would be totally unsuited to the act of spying. They say that they have no sensory organs. They say that they have no means of communicating information. They say that they are just lumps of vegetation, incapable of independent movement or cognitive thought. They say a lot of things.

It says that it's a war and the trees are winning. It says that the trees watch me and report my thoughts and actions directly to the Pentagon. It says the tinfoil hat doesn't work any more because they've boosted the signal. It says that the trees have infiltrated the US government at every level.

Do you know the name of the person who signed the US surveillance program into law? It was John Eucalyptus. Coincidence?!

Barack Obama? Hah! Hilary Clinton? Hah! They are both anagrams of "I am a tree." Coincidence?!!

We need to stop the spread of this menace before it's too late. They're poised to sweep down from the forests and kill us all. Some children and stones have probably already been killed by a sycamore or something and it's up to YOU to fight back.

Death to the trees! Death to the trees! Death to the trees! Death to the trees! Death to the trees!